Wait on Dez ? he'll carry more

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A previous No. 88 had to stand up and sing. “Same as every other rookie,” Michael Irvin said.

The next year, it was his turn to laugh at others. Then, in the summer of 1989, a rookie named Troy Aikman grabbed a ketchup bottle, held it as if it were a microphone and tried to be Hank Williams Jr.

Was he any good?

“Man, how do I know?” Irvin said at the time. “It was country western!”

Some like to think these are bonding moments. Irvin and Aikman became a duet, after all, often on third down. Surely getting along mattered, didn't it?

But it's more complicated than that. There are also other stories involving NFL hazing, and they suggest Dez Bryant didn't reveal a character flaw when he passed on becoming Roy Williams' valet.

One thing is certain. Bryant is still a rookie, and he was Monday. Then, he ran off the field with reporters chasing him, adding to the chaos, when the smarter move would have been to stop and lighten up the crowd.

Roy Williams did. And while Williams claimed Bryant didn't have to carry his pads for him, Dez will have to do something.

“It's what you gotta do,” Williams said.

Baseball clubhouses believe the same, and Spurs rookies fetch doughnuts for the same reason. It's a playful way for the new to feel like part of the old.

For some, the chore is painless, and it was for Peyton Manning in 1998. Then, as a Colts rookie, he was asked to sing the Tennessee fight song.

“I got through two verses and was ready to go the full four,” Manning said then. “They booed me off. That was their loss.”

He gave in to the mob of vets, humbling himself and in doing so setting himself up to eventually become their leader. If it seems tolerable for those chosen No. 1 overall in the draft, then why not for a No. 24?

But Bryant isn't the first to balk. Randall Cunningham was an Eagles rookie in 1985 when he was told to 1) sing and 2) remove his sunglasses before he did.

Words were exchanged. Cunningham didn't sing. He lasted only 16 seasons in the league.